Originally Posted by xwiredtva

Ok, my mini has had a SHORT life so far. It's been well cared for by two owners (I'm one) and garaged it's entire life (I called and spoke to the original owner - ALWAYS take your stuff out of the CAR!). She was not a happy camper with it either BTW.

After 2 weeks I got it back and had a LONG LONG Talk with the mechanics at the BMW Dealership (Mini USA offered "Good Faith" discount of $500 after a $900 towing charge- IE: More expensive). The one mechanic worked for a Mini dealer in MD. He said his JOB was replacing transmissions, that's all he did (sound like there's a problem?). He said BMW knows the problem, knew of it when they put the Midlands boxes in the car but figured they would last past the warranty long enough to sell the cars and it worked we all got suckered into them. This is also why the 2006+ have 6spd Getrags (same ones used by GM on the SS Cobalt BTW).

He said the ONLY way to keep these from breaking is to change the oil at 7500 miles. Use synthetic and hope for the best. The problem is in the bearings on the shafts. He showed me on mine where it failed. The bearing shreds then the bits get jammed into the gears which causes them to break apart. There not double heat treated gears so they are brittle but strong. Double heat treating would give them some flex which may actually cause them to bend and break up faster.

As for the CVT's when I asked he just laughed. He said every 5k miles change the fluid. Not sure if you can add a oil cooler to the auto's but it's all about the heat deteriorating the oil which causes the system to fail.

So there you go from the horses mouth, change the engine oil change the tranny fluid. Also on new boxes he reco'd changing at 500 then again at 3000 miles.

2006+ don't have transmission problems. He said he never worked on a 2006 or newer unit and he worked for them until Dec 2007.

Also when you replace the tranny replace the mounts too. The BMW dealer actually replaced them at no charge for me as well as the flywheel IF the gears punch a hole on the clutch side of the box itself. The core charge for the tranny is now $1000.

Originally Posted by sparkyj

I have a 2002 with a trans that is starting to Whir and not shift into 3rd gear properly. This was after a broken shift fork was replaced and we replaced the clutch while the trans was out.